Civ6 PBEM: Sullla of Rome

[fahbs]

Would Eagle Warriors even have been able to do anything against you 10 turns ago?

I think the game was over the instant Yuris declared war on teh.

[shinghand]

What are your plans after PBEM 1 is finished? Going to do any more MP, or back to SP?

[Sullla]

Fahbs: Eagle Warriors are great units up until swords and horses appear on the battlefield, after which their usefulness declines considerably. Once I had a core force of legions and horses (so after roughly Turn 75), the Eagle Warriors weren't too much of a threat. They aren't totally useless even now though, especially with the Oligarchy bonus and if they can get on defensive terrain with surrounding unit support bonuses. Honestly, even old units can be pretty useful in Civ6 for those support/flanking bonuses, and it's always helpful to have a unit that can get that last hit on an enemy unit if necessary. Units are much, much more valuable in this game than in Civ4 because they're comparatively more expensive. It's never a good idea to throw them away needlessly.

Yuris' decision to attack teh is likely the single biggest discussion point of this PBEM game. I can only imagine what you guys have posted about that in the Lurker thread right now. And in retrospect, it was clearly a mistake on his part since it helped cleared my way to a relatively routine conquest of everyone else. Still, as I said at the time, it's an easy call from the omniscient lurker perspective that simply wants to see a close game and an exciting outcome. It's a much harder call from Yuris' limited perspective. The way I see it, Yuris had three major options at that point:

1) Attack Sullla. This has the advantage of potential reigning in the game leader and stopping the runaway. But it's hard to see what Yuris gets personally out of this move, since his territory didn't border any of my territory. At best, he's making teh stronger by this move. Aside from slowing down the game leader, this does nothing to help Yuris himself.

2) Attack teh. The advantage here is potentially claiming land from Yuris' immediate neighbor while he was off fighting a different opponent. Capture a few cities and suddenly Yuris could be large enough to challenge the winner of the Roman civil war. The disadvantage is exactly what ended up happening: teh is strong enough to fight back, the war turns into a stalemate, and Rome runs over everyone.

3) Attack TheArchduke. I don't know how much Yuris thought about this, but it may have been his best move. Imagine if Yuris lets teh fight it out with me, while using that time to capture Arpinum and then Stockholm. Suddenly he ends up with 6 cities against 5 or 6 for teh and perhaps 8 or 9 cities for me, and with myself and teh weakened from mutual infighting. That's a much better situation for him, right? It's an interesting counterfactual.

With that said though, Yuris' biggest issue wasn't choosing between any of these alternatives. It's that he simply didn't put himself in a strong enough position to make any of these choices effective. Yuris is the only one of the players in this game who failed to settle any cities in the center of the map. He was locked out completely, and that greatly weakened his potential options. Yuris also failed to secure a second source of either horses or iron, and he also failed to build an Encampment in any cities. That meant he had the fewest cities in the game, with a small production base, and no strategic resources to build modern units. At that point, none of his potential options would have worked. He just didn't play the first 80ish turns well enough to have any good options at all. I'll close this discussion for now by reminding the lurkers that Yuris isn't under the obligation to help other players win so that the game can be more entertaining for the lurkers to read. He made what was a justifiable choice for his civ at that moment... and it backfired spectacularly.

Shinghand: I'm taking a break from Civ6 Multiplayer for a while after this. I'm getting tired of the constant grind and I want to go back and play some more Single Player for a while. I've learned a ton from this game, and it has been a real blast, but it's definitely time for a rest. I'm also moving to a new apartment next month, and I don't need another PBEM hanging over my head while that's going on.

This got long enough that I'm going to split the turn report into a separate post.

[gunnerxtr]

I hope you do some more Twitch / LP's!

[Sullla]

OK, as you probably saw when Yuris posted earlier today, he declared war on me in an extremely telegraphed attack:



Note that Yuris loses access to a luxury and to my excess iron, which means no more knights for him. (His "second" iron is visible at the top of that screenshot, and it's not located in his borders.) Let's see what we had here. Three knights, three horsemen, and two Eagle Warriors, plus that random Eagle Warrior off in my territory to the far west. I get about 335 military power from that group, and Yuris was reading at 384 power, so he either has one more knight somewhere or a couple of random older units. But this should be the bulk of his army right here, more or less. If I kill this, I win the war and then it's just a matter of walking up to Yuris' capital and ending the game.

Since my Great General was over in the south, I had to start by moving my units in that theatre of war first:



Aachen did not finish city walls this turn, which kind of surprised me. I moved up some units next to the city and prepared to attack it next turn (when I again suspect that the walls will likely be done). I'll have the battering ram next to the city next turn though, and thus any walls will be short lived. Because I didn't have the city under siege and several of my units were still moving into position, I opted to pillage the trade route with my three-promotion legion. That gave me a very welcome 60 gold, which will help turn more legions into muskets in a few turns. I ended up moving the two crossbows over here and taking potshots at Aachen, along with sending the horseman 5 tiles due east. The final situation in the south looked like this:



The two crossbows took out about 40 HP from the city. Aachen will of course heal back 20 HP between turns since it's not under siege, but every little bit of chip damage helps. If the city doesn't build walls between turns, I think I can take it next turn. If it does finish walls, then I'll spend one turn destroying the walls (and putting it under siege), then capture the German capital on Turn 111. Either way, it won't be much longer. Ulm should be easy to take after that; since it has much lower production, I don't think it will be finishing walls any time soon. (Now watch them finish next turn and make me look like a fool, heh.) Teh also had a military power rating of zero this turn: no units at all.

By the way, I visited Aachen this summer and I definitely recommend it. The cathedral and town square are lovely, and make a great day trip from Cologne.



Now for the main action of the turn. Yuris attacked with his two knights and did about 80 HP worth of damage to the city of Mainz. He was not able to put it under formal siege thanks to the tricky geography in this region, and so Mainz should heal back 20 HP at the end of my turn. (I think; unless it already healed back 20 HP at the start of my turn. Not sure when that happens.) The top priority was downing one of the two knights this turn and clearing out some space in this area for my crossbows to work. I have the superior ranged firepower in this area and the defender's advantage, but that wouldn't matter if my units ended up getting choked on top of one another and unable to fire.

First things first. I took the two-promotion crossbow and fired at the most dangerous unit in range, the knight northeast of Mainz:



That knocked the knight below half health. I was hoping that it would damage the knight enough that my legion inside Mainz could attack out of the city and kill it. See, I wanted a unit inside Mainz this turn for the defensive bonus, but I didn't want a unit inside Mainz at the end of this turn because if the city fell any unit inside would be destroyed. My moves this turn were designed to avoid leaving a unit inside the city unless I had no other choice. Anyway, my preferred move wasn't going to work: the legion would be unable to kill the knight northeast of the city. Therefore I had the one-promotion crossbow on the jungle tile shoot the Eagle Warrior for 48 damage. Interestingly, the Eagle Warrior had the Tortoise promotion which gave it +10 strength against the crossbow bolt. However, that meant that it lacked the Battlecry promotion, and my legion inside the city easily cleaned it up.

So why did I care about attacking the Eagle Warrior? Wasn't that unit unimportant? Well, killing the Eagle Warrior allowed my legion to get out of the city and remove an enemy unit in the process. That allowed a knight to move 4 tiles into Mainz:



And then kill the Aztec knight with a handy assist from the Great General and the support bonus from the legion. The odds said I would have just enough damage to win this combat, and fortunately the dice luck held true. This gave me a nearly full health knight on the tile northeast of Mainz, limiting the tiles from which the city could be attacked to two: northwest and west of the city. I believe that Mainz should be able to hold out another turn, and that will give me another turn to clear out units and fire my crossbows, etc. Even if Mainz would fall, I should be able to take it back fairly easily with the units I had amassed around it.

Ideally, I would have moved the remaining crossbow into Mainz and fired at the horseman unit, then killed it with my fresh knight in the west. However, that crossbow was not in range of the Great General at the start of my turn, and thus it only had 2 moves on this turn, not 3 moves. I could move into Mainz, but not move in there and fire, and so there was no point moving into a place where the unit might get killed if the city fell. I opted to heal in place this turn, and I'll have the 3 movement next turn to move and fire.

Meanwhile, I finished Civil Service civic this turn, opening up a policy swap:



I kept Conscription, Caravansaries, and Merchant Confederation to keep my economy running along at a decent clip. In the Economic column, I dropped Serfdom in favor of Meritocracy now that my current way of builders had completed. Meritocracy is an amazing policy with its +1 culture per specialty district; along with monuments, it often proves enough culture to get through the civics tree with few or no Theatre districts. (It was already worth about 8 culture/turn for me, and will be significantly more once the German cities come out of occupation.) In the Wildcard section, I grabbed two Military policies. Bastions was designed to beef up my city defenses, with an additional +6 defensive strength everywhere. Unfortunately after making this selection, I discovered that the policy only applies to city walls, not all city defenses. Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. Still, it will be helpful at Aquileia, and I learned something useful for future Civ6 games. Not entirely a waste, although I could have taken a better policy.

The other policy I took was Maneuver: +50% production on Ancient and Classical mounted units. Why that policy? Well, I told you last turn I had a trick up my sleeve if Yuris attacked me:



Why hello there Mr. Forest Chop! Why yes, I would like a horseman for free with significant overflow, thank you very much. Oh, and what's this?



Another horseman for free! You shouldn't have. That resulted in 2 horsemen immediately, and Arpinum can complete another horseman with the overflow in 2 more turns. Aquileia and Arpinum also started horsemen, each due in 3 turns. And Ravenna will chop another forest, which will be worth at least one more horseman, possibly two more with all of the overflow. What's the deal with all the horsemen? Well, they're cheap to build at only 80 production and they have enough speed to reach the front lines quickly with their four movement. The Great General boosts them up to 41 strength, and that's plenty for what I need right now. Just give me some more cheap units to hold the lines while my highly promoted crossbows do the real work. I finished two horses this turn and I should have five more completing in the next three turns. This might be overkill but I see no reason to take any chances.

I'm sending the current horses up to the front lines until I get them under control. That random Eagle Warrior in my back lines can't take any cities and is therefore not that scary. There are even multiple builders around to repair tiles as they are pillaged. I will probably chase it down with some of these horses in a few turns, hopefully before it can pillage any districts.



Here's the current state of the front lines. As I said, Mainz can only be attacked from two tiles, and I think even attacking with two knights won't quite be able to capture the city. Yuris may be able to kill my northeast knight if he attacks with both of his knights, but then both Aztec knights would surely die on my turn. All three crossbows should be able to fire next turn, and therefore I should be positioned for quite the counterattack. Frankfurt is a bit dicier, so I moved my knight inside the city to give it a defensive rating of 48 strength. Then I intended to move my legion onto the forested hill to the west to block movement from the Aztec horseman, only to find that I had already swapped position with the knight, and that left the legion with only 1 movement point left. Whoops. The best move I could make at that point was to drop a fortification and fortify in place, although I should have placed that one tile further east to cut down on the mobility of the Aztec units in this region. Yuris has made a somewhat unfocused attack by going for these two cities at once; I've started to roll up his flank at Mainz already, and I should be able to make further progress next turn. While I won't say the danger is completely passed yet, I'm feeling better about my position after this turn.

Overall, I added 70 military power this turn from the two horsemen while Yuris lost 75 power from the knight and Eagle Warrior. He has to win these trades overwhelmingly in order to have any prayer of success, and so far that's not happening. Remember: it's much easier to defend in this game than it is to attack.

[antisocialmunky]

Yuris Last Turn:

Yuris Next Turn:

(bottom left)

[oledavy]

Nice move with the forest chops.

[shinghand]

Fahbs: Eagle Warriors are great units up until swords and horses appear on the battlefield, after which their usefulness declines considerably. Once I had a core force of legions and horses (so after roughly Turn 75), the Eagle Warriors weren't too much of a threat. They aren't totally useless even now though, especially with the Oligarchy bonus and if they can get on defensive terrain with surrounding unit support bonuses. Honestly, even old units can be pretty useful in Civ6 for those support/flanking bonuses, and it's always helpful to have a unit that can get that last hit on an enemy unit if necessary. Units are much, much more valuable in this game than in Civ4 because they're comparatively more expensive. It's never a good idea to throw them away needlessly.

Yuris' decision to attack teh is likely the single biggest discussion point of this PBEM game. I can only imagine what you guys have posted about that in the Lurker thread right now. And in retrospect, it was clearly a mistake on his part since it helped cleared my way to a relatively routine conquest of everyone else. Still, as I said at the time, it's an easy call from the omniscient lurker perspective that simply wants to see a close game and an exciting outcome. It's a much harder call from Yuris' limited perspective. The way I see it, Yuris had three major options at that point:

1) Attack Sullla. This has the advantage of potential reigning in the game leader and stopping the runaway. But it's hard to see what Yuris gets personally out of this move, since his territory didn't border any of my territory. At best, he's making teh stronger by this move. Aside from slowing down the game leader, this does nothing to help Yuris himself.

2) Attack teh. The advantage here is potentially claiming land from Yuris' immediate neighbor while he was off fighting a different opponent. Capture a few cities and suddenly Yuris could be large enough to challenge the winner of the Roman civil war. The disadvantage is exactly what ended up happening: teh is strong enough to fight back, the war turns into a stalemate, and Rome runs over everyone.

3) Attack TheArchduke. I don't know how much Yuris thought about this, but it may have been his best move. Imagine if Yuris lets teh fight it out with me, while using that time to capture Arpinum and then Stockholm. Suddenly he ends up with 6 cities against 5 or 6 for teh and perhaps 8 or 9 cities for me, and with myself and teh weakened from mutual infighting. That's a much better situation for him, right? It's an interesting counterfactual.

With that said though, Yuris' biggest issue wasn't choosing between any of these alternatives. It's that he simply didn't put himself in a strong enough position to make any of these choices effective. Yuris is the only one of the players in this game who failed to settle any cities in the center of the map. He was locked out completely, and that greatly weakened his potential options. Yuris also failed to secure a second source of either horses or iron, and he also failed to build an Encampment in any cities. That meant he had the fewest cities in the game, with a small production base, and no strategic resources to build modern units. At that point, none of his potential options would have worked. He just didn't play the first 80ish turns well enough to have any good options at all. I'll close this discussion for now by reminding the lurkers that Yuris isn't under the obligation to help other players win so that the game can be more entertaining for the lurkers to read. He made what was a justifiable choice for his civ at that moment... and it backfired spectacularly.

Shinghand: I'm taking a break from Civ6 Multiplayer for a while after this. I'm getting tired of the constant grind and I want to go back and play some more Single Player for a while. I've learned a ton from this game, and it has been a real blast, but it's definitely time for a rest. I'm also moving to a new apartment next month, and I don't need another PBEM hanging over my head while that's going on.

This got long enough that I'm going to split the turn report into a separate post.

You are right that there was a lot of lurker discussion about this, and also right that most of the lurkers were hoping/looking forward to a Sullla vs Everyone Else Alive scenario. Look what happens when you don't dogpile Sullla in the early game, sending units halfway across the world with no benefit to yourself

Another option that the lurkers considered was to attack Stockholm - which would 1. cause some minor problems for you because you were the suzerain of Stockholm at the time 2. give him a foothold in the center region to expand towards; as you noticed, yuris doesn't have any land in the centre and 3. Open up a front for future attacks on you when you were shaping up to be the world superpower. I'll let you read it yourself once the game is over.

The popularity of this PBEM (in no small part due to your frequent and insightful reports!) has generated quite a lot of interest on the SP front as well - there seem to be many more submissions for Adv 4. Will be looking forward the next installment of the epics/adventures

[Sullla]

I actually woke up slightly early this morning so that I'd have the time to play the turn before heading off to work. Unfortunately, Yuris didn't pass on the save during his normal turn window, which means I can't get around to playing for the next 12 hours. Sorry! I really wanted to play the next turn myself.

[RefSteel]

This is an obvious corollary to your rule of thumb about the save:

Rule of thumb: the save will ALWAYS be waiting at 5:50am, even if if never showed up all day Sunday when I had plenty of free time.

...unless you specifically prepare for this by waking up early to play an exciting turn, in which case the save will instead be delayed until you've gone to work.